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With a year to go until the Assembly polls, the BJD government led by Naveen Patnaik has launched a scheme for members of the Rural Women’s Self Help Group (WSHG), which is known to be the pillar of the party’s success in the last 23 years.
Dubbed Mission Shakti Scooter Yojana, the new scheme comes with a budget expenditure of Rs 528 crore over the next five years and aims to provide an interest-free loan of up to Rs 1 lakh for the purchase of scooters by Mission Shakti consortium leaders and community support staff. The scheme will facilitate critical mobility support for members of self-help groups. Almost every village in Odisha has more than one self-help group.
Official sources said around 75,000 community support staff and nearly 1.25,000 union leaders at panchayat, block and district levels will directly benefit from the new scheme.
“By providing Mission Shakti Union leaders and community support staff with affordable access to two-wheelers, the initiative will enhance their ability to carry out their responsibilities effectively, enhance efficiency and expand their reach within the community,” Transport Minister Tukuni Sahu said after a state cabinet meeting.
Sahu said the new plan not only facilitates personal mobility for women, but also recognizes the vital role that community support staff and union leaders play in driving social change and development to empower women across the state.
Started in 2001, a year after Patnaik came to power, the Mission Shakti initiative has remained one of the highest priority areas of BJD distribution. About 70 rural women were organized as part of the six SHG groups under an initiative of huge political significance. These women are known to be the loyal vote bank of the BJD government.
The scheme also assumes political significance as the BJD government created the separate Mission Shakti division in March 2021. Patnaik, who is also the BJD’s chairman, dispatched the SHG leader, 70-year-old Pramila Biswi, from the Aska seat in parliament, who won the election by a margin of more than 2 lakh votes.
Sponsoring self-help groups for women has been a long tradition in the BJD government. Hours after Patnaik took over as prime minister for the fifth time, the government agreed to and did not give away services for purchases worth Rs 1,000 crore from 10 departments to self-help groups.
The services include supplying uniforms to pre-schoolers in Anganwadi centres, owning affordable shops, taking charge of buying rice, providing midday meals in schools, reading electricity and bills, raising nurseries, renting village tanks for fish farming and supplying meals to hospitals.
Two years later in July 2021, the government decided to provide businesses by all government departments worth Rs 5,000 crore in five years to self-help groups in order to boost their economic conditions.
Patnaik used to meet Mission Shakti members who come from different areas to his residence to discuss their issues and problems almost every week. Patnaik’s trusted bureaucrat and private secretary V.K. K. Pandyan visited different areas, where he met self-help teams and popped into Mission Shakti cafes serving traditional Odia food and snacks.
As Odisha’s international air connectivity services from Bhubaneswar to Dubai kicked off in May this year, a group of Mission Shakti members were among the flyers on the first flight facilitated by the state government. Another group also traveled to Singapore in June when the flight services started. A special session is also dedicated to the Mission Shakti initiative when every two years the state holds a Make-in-Odisha event to showcase the state’s business ecosystem.
Meanwhile, continuing the welfare schemes for people in various sectors, the Cabinet also approved budget support of Rs 1,001 crore to expand comprehensive cancer services.
According to the plan, 11 cancer care units with 50 to 100 beds with other facilities like operating room, intensive care unit, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and palliative care units will be built within two years in different hospitals across the state.
“From now on, patients do not need to travel out of the state for advanced cancer care. Facilities such as radiotherapy, brachytherapy, histopathology and surgical oncology will be enhanced,” said Odisha Secretary, PK Gina.
This will certainly reduce the out-of-pocket spending of people with cancer and their family members, said the Secretary-General.
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